Coffee1, Why MP3 and not Apple AAC (native to Ipod, Ipad etc.) that sounds better. The only decent MP3 encoder I remember was "Lame Mp3". Mp3 can be played on any DVD player but other than that AAC is better (not to be confused with lossless ALAC that produces same extension). I used to rip into 256kbps with variable bit rate option set on to use with MiniDisc but now I use ALAC for my main system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding